


To Whom I Can Pray

by merildis



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Religion, some introspective bullshit really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10822305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merildis/pseuds/merildis
Summary: David has never been a spiritual man.





	To Whom I Can Pray

**Author's Note:**

> i've always been super fascinated by the "i don't believe in god, otacon, so you're the only one to whom i can pray" line in the mgs4 novelization so i just kinda took it and ran with it and now we have some introspective bullshit here enjoy

David has never been a spiritual man.

He attended church with a handful of his foster families in his youth, sometimes. He remembers the stuffy shirts and uncomfortable pews, preachers prattling on about a God Dave never knew. If God was real, he always thought, he would have given him a real family. A childish notion, really.

 

He met plenty of men who believed in the service. He always thought it strange that so many of the men around him clutched their rosaries and preached about a benevolent God while they gunned people down. He asked another recruit, once, when they were sitting in their bunks in the barracks back in FOXHOUND nursing their latest bruises, why he cared so much. “Just gives me something bigger to fight for, man,” he had said, wrapping a bandage around his split knuckles. “Feels good to think that there's some higher power out there taking care of me. Makes me think there's something better after all this.”

“What about your family? Your country? Isn't that enough to fight for?”

Buffalo just shook his head and shrugged. Dave didn't ask again.

 

A sweet old lady with white hair and a wide grandmother’s smile caught sight of David’s military ID in his wallet in 1998 and laid her frail hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing the Lord’s work, child,” she told him.

He managed to stammer a halting “thank you, ma’am,” as she walked away. He never understood how what he did for a living could be considered “the Lord’s work” when he was supposed to be a loving god. There’s nothing benevolent in killing, nothing holy or righteous about the death and the blood and the images that haunt him every time he closes his eyes.

 

Hal asked about his faith in the early days of Philanthropy, when things were fresh and new and wounds still raw and bleeding even after the physical ones had healed.

“Do you believe in God? Not, ah, to be invasive, I just wondered—a lot of soldiers—I just don't want to step on any toes, is all.”

Dave only lit another cigarette. “No. I’d rather put my faith in myself than some higher power. If he is out there, he never did me any good.”

“Ah. I don’t either.” Hal had muttered. They didn't talk about it again until David’s hair started fading from brown to grey.

 

The first time David began to understand, he was opening his eyes on a tiny, rocking boat on the Hudson river. His blurry vision and the water clinging to his lashes made the figure above him look like an angel, like a god, like some higher power.

But the man who pulled him from the Hudson wasn't a deity, wasn't a god, wasn't an angel. He was just Hal, shaking and crying and soaked to the bone above him. And yet when he crashed into his chest, Dave wondered if this is what they all meant when they spoke of God’s love. It seemed pure enough to him.

He woke up, later, a few hours down the road, and realized the answer Buffalo had never given him was easy enough. Sometimes family or country isn't enough to fight for. Sometimes the whole _world_ isn't enough. Sometimes you need something more. Something greater. Something bigger than yourself. Something that matters more than your family our your country or anything else ever could.

Dave looked at Hal and realized he had found it.

 

Master Miller had told him once, in the smoke-hazy apartment, when both of them were high as hell and already starting to claw each other's clothes off, that soldiers would believe anything for forgiveness. That they clung to God because of the promise of forgiveness, of salvation.

Dave didn't get a chance to ask him why they cared about God’s forgiveness when they should be worried about forgiving themselves.

But Hal forgave him. Hal loved him despite every drop of blood that was on his hands, never once berated him for the blood he had spilled. 

David decided he didn't need his own forgiveness when Hal looked at him like that.

 

He’s kneeling in a sea of star-of-Bethlehem flowers and gravestones when he the words of a preacher he heard when he was young echo in his ears again. God sent his most beloved son to die for the sins of humanity. To die so that those who lived could find peace and salvation.

Well, David came here to die, didn't he?

He holds the pistol in weathered hands and lets his mind wander one last time. It comes back to that preacher, to the hard, wooden pews and the stuffy chapel, to the sermon he only remembers in bits and pieces. He remembers him preaching of Heaven and Hell, and wonders, briefly, where his own soul would land. He knows the answer: there is blood on his hands he could never wash away, not with the holiest of water. If there is a Heaven, it is not for him.

He finally lifts the gun and slides the barrel past his teeth, feels the metal cold and heavy on his tongue. He clicks the safety off and covers the trigger with his finger.

His resolve falters. Instead, he looks for strength in the one place he knows he can find it. He isn’t a spiritual man, but there is one thing he believes in:

“I don't believe in God, Otacon, so you're the only one to whom I can pray.”

David does not pull the trigger.


End file.
